A Project, A Passport, and Pokemon
by Negat1ve-Zer0
Summary: Assef Khartoum is about to experience culture shock on a global scale. Thanks to his job at a national magazine office, he will leave his hometown of Detroit and document the travels of him and his buddy Luke Windsor as they collect badges to compete in the International Pokemon Gym Tournament.
1. Chapter 1

_I had originally made a story called Pokemon Generations, very few have probably seen it, and even fewer submitted OC's. I hate to say it but I took it down because it was going nowhere. When I made the story I didn't have a plot in mind, I was getting ahead of myself. However I do have a new story planned, as you could tell from the title, A Project, A Passport, and Pokemon. I have made the main characters for this story, but if you wish you can submit an OC that might make an appearance in a chapter, and if I think about it I may take ONE to be a main character. Alright, so here's the rundown:_

Things have finally been set, now there will be an international Pokemon Tournament for anyone to join. Starting Jan. 1, 2013, trainers will have to challenge all eight gyms and register in time before December 31, 2013. To apply, trainers must obtain a passport and a special IPGT visa (allowing travel to any countries that agreed) valid for a full year, two badges must be obtained every three months for the visa to stay in use.

Many cities had bid for their gym to participate, but only eight had made the list, six will hold preliminary tournaments (to narrow the large number of contestants to 64 finals competitors per continent) and one will hold the finals, where one trainer will be crowned the world's Champion Trainer.

The city listings are as follows:

New York City, New York, USA

Rome, Italy

Ayars Rock-Alice Spring, Australia (Funded by Sydney)

Johannesburg, South Africa

Mexico City, Mexico

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Moscow, Russia

Tokyo, Japan

Preliminary Locations:

Europe: Madrid, Spain

Africa: Lagos, Niger

South America: Buenos Aires, Argentina

North America: Toronto, Canada

Australia: Canberra

Asia: Beijing, China

Finals Tournament: Singapore

Gyms can be challenged in any order, and the after the year is up tournaments will begin.

_Oh yeah, in case something needs a little clarification, I will put a * next to words and place explanations on the bottom of the chapters. _


	2. New Assignments

…_and now Mrs. Gibson lives happily reunited with her daughter in their Indianapolis home._

"There," I said to nobody. I leaned back in my chair and let out a deep sigh, another job _finally _completed.

Let me explain, my name is Assef Khartoum, and I work at the Midwest division (based in Detroit) of _Our 50 States, _a magazine that writes about any stories or discoveries and such in the United States. I've lived in Motown all of my life, from birth to elementary school, Cass Tech* to Wayne State University, and now here I am working as an article writer. I never actually get to go out and do much research for stories though, I just put what others give me into stories, and I suppose someone has to do it, but I didn't earn a writing degree to use other people's words!

Around my senior year in high school I discovered I wanted to be a writer in some way, and so you can probably figure out what happened between then and now. To write a top-shelf story many would read, that's a long-term goal of mine, the only thing is, I haven't had much inspiration right now. I'm not quite sure what I want to write about that will get me going, there seems to be this fuzzy picture in my head, but, I don't know WHAT it is.

One thing for sure is that I don't feel like publishing articles on family stories in the Midwest. You're probably sick of hearing about writing now, so what else is there to know about me? Well, I like to battle with Pokemon, although I never seem to have time for that anymore, I mostly watch them now. I have only one Pokemon, a Wingull, which I know is weird to have in Michigan, but if you went to any Meijers* parking lot in the summer you would see they come in swarms. My dad caught it for me way back, saying, "You want a Pokemon? There you go," and dropped a pokeball in my lap.

Anyways, I leaned back in my office chair, thinking for the millionth time what I wanted to do with my life, when a coworker came to my cubicle and said, "Hey Assef, there's a meeting in the next room, the boss said it's something important."

I get up, slowly, because _important _usually means telling us the next deadline for a cover story followed by a pep-talk and figuring out who will do the writing and researching. I usually stand quietly in the back and let the eager brown-nosers compete for the job.

I pulled into the meeting room where everyone was already gathered, and my boss stood in the center, holding some rolled up paper.

"Okay everybody, this upcoming story is a whopper of a big one. Take a look at this." He unrolls the paper in his hands, which actually turns out to be a poster. I squint and see that it's for some kind of tournament. It was a _world _tournament, for pokemon battling.

"Think of this as like the Olympics for trainers. Eight badges need to be collected to compete in a tournament, taking place in Singapore. _Our Fifty States _has decided to have one writer go and cover the journey a trainer would have to take, and our office was lucky enough to choose a writer."

The entire room was quiet, unnaturally quiet, and in that silence I had reached an epiphany.

It was like a whole universe exploded in my head, okay that might be an overstatement, but I had finally found the answer I was looking for. For several years I've done so much deep-thinking and now it's like the answer was in front of me this whole time:

I wanted to travel.

Yes that was it. I wanted to go and see this wide world we live in. If I got the job I could combine all three of my interests, exploring, writing, and pokemon battling. I had to go, I just had to.

But how could I have not known this until now? All this time I've been living within the borders of Michigan, (except for one college trip abroad to Mumbai, but even then why didn't I realize travelling was my calling?!), I've been cooped up, and now this is my chance, no, my destiny.

"Well," my boss speaks up, breaking my daydream, "I have smaller copies of this poster if anyone wants to take one home, if any of you are interested in the assignment you can apply in my office tomorrow, and then I'll announce who gets it on Saturday."

Then he leaves with the original poster, and once he shuts the door to his office it was a mad dash to the copies. Everyone wanted in on this, but there was one thing I had over all of them, a barely retainable drive that was determined to get me this story, and I would do anything and everything in my power to get it.

_Alright, first chapter, but I was hoping to put it up a couple days earlier, oh well, that's procrastination for ya. Anyways…_

_Cass Tech is a technical high school in Cass Corridor, a neighborhood in Detroit (much like Tribeca or Harlem in NYC). Students have to test into the school, and it teaches the general core classes, but according to my friend they put emphasis on math and science. It is a very good school._

_Meijers is the regional supermarket from Wisconsin and Michigan down to Kentucky, and maybe Tennessee (for those who don't live in any of these states)_


End file.
